Friday, May 3, 2013

Kicking Gluten Out

I am sure that you have noticed multiple people are going gluten free.  Personally, I know of over ten friends that are currently going gluten free this week!  When gluten first became the hot topic discussion, I swore to my husband that there was no way I was giving up my bread, crackers, pasta, etc!  Enter our firstborn, the one with food allergies, the one who constantly makes me eat my words; do you have one like that too?  I want to preface this by stating that Kamron was not diagnosed with Celiac's, a gluten allergy, or a gluten intolerance by a certified doctor.  I also suggest that you talk to a doctor or dietician before embarking on any special diet, these are things that have worked for me and my family and may not work for you.  Kamron was diagnosed with a serious soy allergy and so we were playing around with his diet and I was talking with a friend that had several years experience in dealing with food allergies and intolerance.  She suggested that I look into limiting or eliminating gluten to see if it would help Kamron's asthma.  Honestly, this terrified me because I had no idea on where to start!  I knew that we could not just cut it all out immediately; I would have some serious backlash from the kids and I was pregnant so the last thing I needed was angry kids and intense cravings to deal with.  
The first thing we did was switch from eating pasta to rice.  I know that there are a lot of gluten free pastas and we tried those.  Honestly, the only one we like is the Ancient Grains Quinoa Pasta.  However, I really struggle to drop 3-4 dollars a box on pasta (and I need two boxes for a meal).  I do buy that for a treat about once a month when I make macaroni and cheese though.  
I also introduced the meat and cheese roll up for lunch.  We ate a LOT of bread so every other day I would nix the bread and we would eat lunch meat wrapped in cheese.  I didn't look for a substitute for this.  I made it out as a new recipe so that it would seem exciting to the boys.  Honestly, they fell for it and it didn't seem like a big deal to them.
With these two changes under my belt I noticed that I was feeling better!  This wasn't even for me and I was reaping some benefits.  On top of that Kamron's asthma wasn't as severe and his attitude was calmer.  That was the convincing that I needed to continue on to going gluten free.  I will share some more easy ways to kick the gluten next week.
If you would like to do some reading on what gluten is and the signs of gluten intolerance I would suggest starting here.


4 comments:

  1. Another similar snack I really like is spreading avocado on lunch meat and wrapping it around a cheese stick. Some of my family (coughDHcough) isn't crazy about the avocado but I think it's delicious and a great way to get some fat in.

    ReplyDelete
  2. A gluten free (I think) snack I love is smoked deli ham smeared with cream cheese and a cucumber stalk. SO yummy.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Those both sound great! Thanks for sharing.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Good job with the post! I am glad I came across it.

    ReplyDelete